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- "הוא לא בבית עכשיו כי הוא מסת…
"הוא לא בבית עכשיו כי הוא מסתפר."
Translation:He's not at home now because he's getting a haircut.
12 Comments
So ספר as a root means either 'writing' or 'barber' (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8) though the pronunciations are different. Can be confusing
First of all, as a Hebrew teacher I don't like it when teachers (usually not Israelis) get the students used to translate one root to one word in English. It's wrong. Root is a family of (close) meanings. In this case there are three subcategories of the root:
- סוֹפֵר, סֵפֶר, סיפּוּר; סיפֵּר, סוּפַר...
Which talk about stories and books etc...
- מִסְפָּר, סְפִירָה; סָפַר...
Which talk about counting
- סַפָּר, מִסְפָּרַיִים; סִיפֵּר, הִסְתַפֵּר...
Which talk about haircut.
The changes in the sound of the פ is due to phonetical or morphological changes. (No place to explain...). Not necessarily due to meaning.... Hope I helped
738
'Getting one's hair cut' is an equivalent in English to 'getting a haircut'. That's why 'he's getting his hair cut' should be an equivalent to 'he's getting a haircut', even though there is no 'he' in the sentence on a literal level. It's an idiomatic expression.